Clam camp: Internships teach environmental science

Cleaning the home for 700,000 clams can be tough work – but a great learning opportunity.

Jamie Balliett

Cleaning the home for 700,000 clams can be tough work – but a great learning opportunity.

That’s why Heinz Proft, the town natural resources director, enlists the assistance of three local high school interns and a science teacher in a six-week program at the town shellfish lab on Wychmere Harbor. They also help monitor area water quality.

“We’re so lucky to have such an exceptional caliber of students this year. And it’s a huge boost to the program to have so much help,” said Proft.

For Kira Archambault, Jennifer Witzgall, and Michael Steidel, the last six weeks were an incredible chance to learn about how the town receives nearly three-quarters of a million pinhead-sized clams in the spring and nurtures them over the summer into a big enough size so they are more likely to survive when they are dispersed, by hand, onto sand flats across town in the fall.

The three interns all profess a love for the environment and science. They’re intrigued by the workings of the shellfish lab, which relies on a series of pumps to feed oxygen- and nutrient-rich saltwater to the 15 or so buckets of clams held in racks. The interns also see the six-week experience as a launching pad for other academic goals.

Witzgall, 16, has lived in town for 14 years and attends Harwich High School. She is a junior and is very interested in science, especially astronomy. She’s got her eye on Williams College in Western Massachusetts as a possible next step.

Steidel is also a junior and 16 but attends Pope John Paul High School in Hyannis. He has enjoyed getting to understand the mechanics of the clam lab and wants to pursue a college degree in engineering, possibly in robotics.

And Archambault, who is 14 and lives in South Yarmouth, hopes to be able to attend the new Monomoy Regional High School for her senior year. Her preference is to keep studying in the field of oceanography and marine biology.

Because Proft is busy doing all of his regular work duties, he relies on internship program supervisor Jill Eastman to help oversee the day-to-day operations. Eastman has taught science at Harwich High School for the last 12 years.

Three days a week, the interns spend the majority of their day doing the most laborious task at the lab: cleaning the tanks where the clams live. This requires careful hands to shift through the clams to pull out debris or dead ones and then a lot of elbow grease to hand scrub the large plastic buckets. They also have to clean the intake filters to make sure they don’t get blocked. Sometimes they even find crabs caught in the filters, trying hard to gobble up baby clams.

“It usually takes most of the day to do this but it’s important,” said Witzgall.

Steidel explained that the cleaning reduces the chance for infection amongst the clams.

Each day, the group samples the incoming salt water to make sure the dissolved oxygen level is high enough, temperature isn’t too hot, and salinity is within an acceptable range.

Every few days, the interns get to do field work to do water quality testing outside the lab at five locations. This gives them the chance to observe the varying conditions of Harwich water bodies, from well-flushed saltwater bodies to smaller isolated freshwater ponds.

Archambault noted this part of the internship is her favorite.

“That’s been fun for me, getting out to do the sampling,” she said.

Eastman said that the program offers a good balance of experience both inside the lab and in the field. She tries to use work activities to pepper the three with questions so they can learn along the way. One sure measure of their progress is a simple question and answer test that is given the first day they arrive and then just before they complete the program six weeks later.

“It’s just one page but their answers really change from the first time to the second,” noted Eastman. “They really give longer and more accurate answers in the final one.”

When passing the time while performing work duties, Proft sometimes gives them a complex riddle to answer.

“Those take a while to answer but we’ve learned to work together on them,” jokes Witzgall.

Proft explained that although much of the internship is filled with basic tasks, this shows the true world behind running a shellfish lab and completing other scientific research for the town.

“The interns have a unique experience that teaches them about the importance of planning, observation, and thoroughness, not to mention a good work ethic,” he said.

At the end of the six weeks, Proft and Eastman throw a mini celebration to acknowledge the end of ‘clam camp’ with a something all high schoolers long for: a pizza party.

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